Sept. 29--It felt like an opening act followed by the headliner at the United Nations on Monday:
There was President Barack Obama speaking first, in earnest but gauzy terms, about, um, looking forward not backward, followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who scorched the rest of the world ... then offered to create a "broad international coalition against terrorism."
Putin is nothing if not audacious. He took a pause from his occupation of eastern Ukraine and his military buildup to safeguard the butcherous Syrian leader Bashar Assad, and to rail against "policies based on self-conceit and belief in one's exceptionality and impunity ..." Take that, you haughty, ineffective and obsolete Americans.
The world was left to wonder if either or both of these presidents could eradicate the evil encroachment of Islamic State.
The backdrop: Anyone paying attention knows the U.S. plan isn't working. Putin, seeking to establish himself as the man who wants not only to fight but to win, has an ulterior motive. He always does. On Monday, he was offering a miserable bargain: His price for cooperation against ISIS is world recognition that his ally Assad is Syria's legitimate leader.
Putin knows he's putting his foot into a multisided war: It includes Islamic State, Syrian government troops loyal to Assad and anti-government forces supported by a U.S.-led coalition.
What's wrong with adding Putin to the anti-Islamic State mix?
The trouble with Russia starts with Assad, who has used chemical weapons against his own people. Obama vowed that Assad must go -- remember Obama's declared but unenforced red line if Assad used those chemical weapons? But Assad still clings to power over a fraction of Syria's territory, killing civilians to protect what he has, while Islamic State continues to recruit jihadists to its cause. Thousands of Syrians who fled the country are desperately trying to get to Europe.
A major component of the U.S. strategy is a flop: the $500 million Pentagon mission to train a rebel force of 5,000 to fight Islamic State on the ground. Only a few fighters made it through training, and they may all be dead or captured. Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that 30,000 foreigners have "poured into Syria" to fight for Islamic State -- half of them in the past 12 months, despite the American-led air assaults.
Back to Putin.
The Russian leader, who controls an air base in Assad territory and has been moving assets into Syria, floored the U.S. with the news in recent days that he has crafted an intelligence-sharing agreement with Iran, Iraq and the Syrian government to fight terrorism. Who's left out of that deal? Guess.
Give this to Putin, on Monday he succinctly focused on the international risk posed by ISIS. "I have to put it frankly," he said. "Russia is not an exception. We cannot allow these criminals who already tasted blood to return back home and continue their evil doings. No one wants that to happen, does he?"
Putin talks a muscular short game but also plays the long game: He wants a huge say in whatever government comes next in Syria. In essence, he'll be a fine ally of whatever regime allows him his valuable Syrian foothold in the Middle East.
What to make of Putin's moves?
An American optimist would say that if Obama and Putin, who had a long meeting late Monday, can get past their disagreement over Assad -- yes, that's a gigantic "if" -- they have a basis for cooperating in the fight against Islamic State: Both want that foe defeated and don't want their fighter jets crashing into each other in battle.
An American pessimist would say that right there is where the two men's common interests part. One president, sensing that the other has left a vacuum, moves to fill it. If and when Islamic State's occupation fails, Putin will claim credit. He'll try to position himself as the man of action on whom the Middle East can depend.
And, for the moment, he has the world reacting to his proposed "broad international coalition against terrorism" -- not to his ruthless occupation in Ukraine.
